Refer: respond to abuse by an adult engaged by a Catholic school

Matters involving allegations of sexual offences

For matters involving allegations of sexual offences, your school's relevant governing body will work with your school's health and wellbeing staff to make sure impacted students and their families are referred to appropriate supports. See a list of school governing bodies.

Support may include connecting the student and family with their local specialist sexual assault service, or other counselling or support service within the community.

Other matters

For matters that do not involve sexual offences, your school can refer students to specialist support services available in the community. Refer complements support. Both actions can happen at the same time if that is the best way to help the student.

Specialist support services support with:

safety, wellbeing and mental and physical health concerns
problem behaviours
legal advice
financial help.

Specialist support services are available to support:

victim survivors of abuse
people who self-harm
children and young people
parents and families
metropolitan, regional and rural communities
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
culturally and linguistically diverse communities
people with disabilities
LGBTIQA+ communities.

Before you engage with students and their parents or carers, highlight which services are likely to be the most suitable.
This will depend on:
- the type of abuse the student experienced
- the support that the students need
- any history that the students have with community services.
Key services for students who have been abused by an adult engaged by a school are:
- headspace: Mental health and wellbeing support for 12-25-year-olds
- Victims of Crime: Support and information for people affected by crime
- Specialist sexual assault services: local sexual assault service.
For full contact details, see services, helplines and websites.
You can also consider:
- a local specialist support service that the student or their family already work with
- the student or family’s general practitioner (GP)
Their GP can connect the student to services such as psychologists, counsellors and other health specialists.
Access to specialist services varies across communities. If local support is limited or not immediately available, schools can contact their relevant governing body.
See a list of school governing bodies.
Talk to students and their parents or carers about the services that are available. This can help them choose the service that best meets their needs.
Ideally, a student will self-refer to a service, with the help and support of their parents or carers. However, your school can help to connect a student to a service. You could do this by making a phone call to the service with, or on behalf of, the student.

Continue to help students after a referral

If your school helps to refer a student to a specialist support service, that service may inform you of the outcome of the referral.

If you are not part of the referral, you may still learn the outcome through an information sharing request. For example, this could happen if the student self-refers.

The service may tell you:

what services the student has been connected to
if they were unsuccessful in contacting the student - they may ask for your help
if the student or their parents or carers declined support.

If a student or their parents or carers do not want to engage with a service at this time, you can give them the list of services, helplines and websites.
By giving them this list, the student or their parents or carers can directly connect with further support and information when they’re ready. This is another way to help them feel empowered and make it more likely that they seek help, even if it’s not immediate.
Follow up with the student or their parent or carers to ensure they can access the services they need. If the student is unable to access a service, consider alternatives that may be available.
At all times, you should continue to:
- support the student
- monitor the situation
- follow the 4 Critical Actions to respond to new information or risks.
This should be in collaboration with:
- the student
- their parents or carers
- relevant authorities
- any specialist support services.

Next steps

Review

After any significant child safety incident, your school must:

review its child safety policies, processes and practices
make improvements where needed.

This is required under Ministerial Order 1359, which sets out how the Child Safe Standards apply in schools.

For more details, see reviewing child safety practices. This includes:

an optional template schools may use to record the review
template communications to the school community.

You've completed the 4 Critical Actions for now

Have you also done the steps in the other 4 Critical Actions?

⬣ Identify ▲ Report ● Support ■ Refer

Support is ongoing. You may need to support and refer the student at the same time.

At all times throughout the 4 Critical Actions, you must

What happens next

authorities may contact you
leadership may follow up.

Keep monitoring the situation. If things change, you may need to come back.

If you need support yourself, see wellbeing support for school staff.

Education & training

Updated 12 May 2026

Schools

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